


Possessions

by covertCalligrapher



Series: Electric Sheep [1]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Developing Relationship, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Romance, post blind-betrayal, the gentlest of kisses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-26
Updated: 2016-02-26
Packaged: 2018-05-23 08:09:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6110422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/covertCalligrapher/pseuds/covertCalligrapher
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post Blind-Betrayal, the Sole Survivor returns Danse's entire life in the Brotherhood crammed into a box.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Possessions

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AceSparkleGirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AceSparkleGirl/gifts).



> so we were talking about the first times they'd cried around each other and determined this was danse's first time! and then i had to write it because i have a fondness for suffering.

His room on the Prydwen was simultaneously everything Penelope had expected it to be and disappointingly _sterile_. There was next to nothing for decoration save the Brotherhood flag he had hanging on a pinched peg. Two tool boxes, a chest, a row of lockers, a safe, and a desk were really all he had by way of furniture save his bed. There were reports on his desk and she was surprised to see he wrote in cursive with small tight letters that were practically impossible to read. A bottle of bourbon and a ceramic mug, a fan, an ashtray with a full pack of cigarettes, and a book on proper engine care made up the rest of the space.

Carefully, one-by-one, she picked each item up and packed his life in the Brotherhood away in a box. Everything went in there: the contents of the desk, the tools on his workbench, the filed papers and writings that appeared to be more of a personal nature, the plastic bowl sans the dried meat he’d no doubt left out for the mousers on the airship. It felt wrong to be rifling through his things like she was, her hands grubby and she was seeing too _much_ of his personals, or perhaps it was too little. There wasn’t much to the items to say that their owner was _Paladin Danse_. Then again, technically they were all hers now. _Paladin Howard_ sounded terrible though, so she put the thought out of her mind.

She emptied his safe and put what she could fit into the box, the rest of it going into her pack. His holotags shined dully at the bottom, the flickering quartz screen distorting his face and rank slightly around the edges. She covered them with his flag, folded into a triangle and as good a cover as any.

With the last of his belongings packed up, she left. People congratulated her on the promotion as she walked towards the bow, told her she did the right thing in hunting down the traitor. The way they called Danse ‘it’ grated her skin the wrong way. The wind whipping around the vertibirds outside the main hallway wiped it off a bit but it still felt stuck to her as she was lifted to the landing pad below. A few squires on the ground ran up to her excitedly and asked her about killing the synth, chattering excitedly before she lit a cigarette and waved them away. The patience to tolerate the praise had died as soon as Maxson had given her all of Danse’s worldly possessions, title included.

Listening Post Bravo took two days to get to a second time. There wasn’t the press of time and rain on her shoulders and she was half afraid he’d be dead or gone by the time she got back. The expectation of that drove her to a crawl, anxiety and nervousness dragging her through half a pack of cigarettes before she made it to the bunker.

Then Penny saw his face flash in the barred windows of the post for a moment before he disappeared back inside and relief tingled in her fingertips. Coming closer, she found the door open slightly and creaking when she pushed it open.

The main room had been cleared and it looked like he’d managed to make it just a bit more livable, a few chairs and even a table sticking out from the boxes of junk and destroyed turrets. It even smelled marginally better, suggesting he’d maybe been trying to air it out when he saw her approaching and went deeper into the bunker.

Half of a power armor frame stood to the corner by the repair benches, a few plates of matte blue steel stacked haphazardly, her lips twitching into a small smile when she saw them. Her fingers trailed lightly over the scuffed metal on her way to the elevator. _Predictable_ , she thought, shifting the box of possessions onto her hip before pressing the button. _A creature of habit._

The elevator came to a shuddering stop at the bottom. The door squeaked open and Danse was standing in the back of the room by the hole into the cave. He was half in the process of pushing furniture into it to keep anything else that thought about burrowing in from coming up. Judging from the relatively cleaned state of the rest of the room, it looked like he’d been busy cleaning and dragging in furniture the week she’d been gone.

He turned a little when she stepped into the room, the elevator practically screaming as the platform bounced. No smile cropped up on his face and she pursed her lips, hefting the box onto an old desk.

“Looks homey in here,” she commented, noting the lack of skeletons and rotted fabric.

Danse pushed the case the last few inches into the hole and cleared his throat, not exactly looking at her. “It needed to be cleaned.” He stood in his white undershirt with his flight suit tied off at the waist, hands idly wiping at the dust on his shirt.

“You could always come live at Sanctuary with everyone else,” she offered, walking a little closer. It was odd space to be caught in, seeing him now and the bits of twisted protectron he’d missed with the broom glinting in the buzzing lights.

He shook his head and turned towards the stack of boxed robotics scraps he’d formed. “I shouldn’t stay so close to familiar territory. Brotherhood patrols will be thicker around places Maxson knows I frequent,” he said, rifling through the top box. “The Brotherhood won’t search for me but we both know should they happen to find me, I’ll be shot,” he added, pulling a piece of some sort of hydraulic joint out of the box.

“You can’t stay in this bunker forever, Danse.”

“I’m not putting your home in danger.”

Penny huffed and idly kicked at the edge of the desk. Glancing up, she caught Danse’s eyes looking right at her. “I brought you something,” she said after a moment.

His eyes flicked to the box then back to her. “I’m not used to gifts, Soldier.”

“No ‘soldier’ right now,” she said sternly, lifting the box and carrying it over. “Guns are down, it’s _Penelope_.”

He took the box and peered inside of it, face crumpling a little at the sight of his possessions. “Is this everything from my quarters?”

“It’s what was in there. I grabbed your flag too,” she said, reaching into her pack and handing him the tri-folded orange piece. He shuffled the box under one arm as he took the flag from her, eyes an odd sort of glassy as he looked at it.

She watched him, suddenly feeling like this hadn’t been the best idea when she reached for the box and gently took it from him. It went down on the makeshift cot and she peered at the couple of whiskey bottles, one mostly finished and a half-eaten Fancy Lad. She broke off a corner of the cake and popped it in her mouth, grinning around the stale sugar and chocolate frosting.

“You know, I never took you as a guy with a sweet tooth,” she said, brushing her fingers off and turning to face him. “Maybe you should hang the flag--”

The words died on her tongue as she saw the way Danse’s face was scrunched up and shining, a few tears already running down his cheeks as his big frame shook. The flag had come half unravelled and hung limply from the vice grip his hands had on it. Penny cursed softly and stepped under his arms into the space between them, forcing the hesitation away as she leaned up and wrapped her arms around his neck. Her legs strained as she tried to get just a bit taller to hold him closer to her.

His body was tense for a few moments and then it felt like something in him _gave_ , his shoulders slumping and arms tightening to hold her against him as his face pressed into her shoulder. She just held onto him, body bent at a weird angle and neck pinching as he arched around her. There was little supporting her, her toes just barely scraping the ground and hands fisted in the shoulders of his shirt and she just _held_ him.

God knew there had been enough on the both of them for the past three weeks but to _feel_ him nearly sobbing into her neck snapped her too and a tired ache spread through her limbs. Not one to cry, she waited out the worst of it, holding him comforting enough for them both.

After a while he stopped shaking and she could feel the dampness of her shirt beginning to cool. He didn’t pull away immediately, instead just holding her even more tightly and swaying slightly. The fluorescents buzzed overhead and she swore she heard something scuttle around across the room, but it was background noise to the way it felt like they were holding each other together right then. He was solid and immediate under her hands.

She sighed and nuzzled her nose into the collar of his shirt and that seemed to be his cue to let her go. He set her down gently, arms loosening as he straightened and cleared his throat quietly. Her eyes opened and she looked up at him, his own eyes staring nervously at the wall above her head.

His hands were stiff when she grabbed them, murmuring his name softly. Nervousness seemed to wrack his frame, embarrassment and the flag still in his hands tight in his knuckles. She pulled the flag free and tossed it onto the cot, lacing their fingers together afterwards. With a bit of hesitation, she brought their hands to her mouth and brushed her lips over his fingers, his face turning impossibly red, but it got him to look at her.

Eyes wide and lips pressed together, he swallowed thickly. She smiled at him, her thumbs brushing over the backs of his hands, the motion so much more gentle than anything she’d done for him so far. He swallowed again but his eyebrows pulled together, eyes sliding shut as he repeated her kiss to her own hand. _God_ , the sudden way her heart clenched with affection nearly killed her.

Eventually it lead to him sitting on the bed, his possessions laid out on the cot around him. She had started out moving various pieces in the room, even helping him hang his flag up by his workbench, but by the end of it she was sitting on his legs while he leaned back against the walls of the bunker.

She was fiddling with his holotags in one hand while her other just brushed over the fine hairs on the nape of his neck. His arms were loosely around her and she would’ve thought he was sleeping if his lips didn’t move to press a soft kiss to her hair every so often.

This was an odd place in their relationship, a level they’d rocketed to without seeming to mean to. Had things gone differently, they’d still be at the stage where she knocked on his armor so he’d bend down for a quick kiss or where he’d step out of his power armor so she could wrap her small frame around his in a tight hug. It had just been innocent kisses and light emotions but this felt _heavier_. She was what he had left and the way he _needed_ her was a part of the way he held her, the way his lips felt on her hair,  the way he showed a certain tenderness she’d only somewhat expected he had.

And she was willing to stick with him through all of this because she was certain if they held each other like this _now_ , with time she could love him.

Somewhere in between his fifth kiss to her hair and the twelfth passing of her thumb over his face on the quartz screen, he cleared his throat softly. “I apologize for the… temporary emotional outburst,” he murmured into her hair.

A smile twitched at her lips, the scars at the corner pulling a little as she fought it. Her nose brushed lightly over his collarbone, the hum of his sigh reverberating through her. “I’m gonna have to punch you if you apologize for that.” _Especially like_ that _._

He smiled into her this time and she could practically see it in her mind; she swore it was bright enough to put stars to shame, but she kept that to herself. “Thank you, Penelope,” he said and he kissed her hair again, seeming to fully embrace this new degree of physical affection.

She let the smile happen this time, adored how _genuine_ he was. Yeah, she figured she _definitely_ could love him.

**Author's Note:**

> hey im in constant pain! tell me how you liked it


End file.
